Xbox Announces 3 Days of Live Broadcasts for Gamescom 2024 [IGN]

Microsoft has fully revealed its plans for gamescom 2024, and they include three days of live broadcasts.

In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft said it will host a series of daily streams from its Xbox booth at the show, running from Wednesday August 21 to Friday August 23. These will offer a deeper dive into various games Xbox is set to release over the coming months, with first-look gameplay, developer chats, and new trailers. Microsoft-owned Bethesda will also host daily content streams from the booth.

Games set to appear during these streams include Stalker 2, Atomfall, Age of Mythology, Star Wars Outlaws, World of Warcraft expansion The War Within, Towerborne, Avowed, and Ara: History Untold.

The Xbox gamescom 2024 live broadcast schedule in full:

Wednesday August 21

• Xbox @ gamescom 2024
  • Start: 6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST
  • Featuring S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Atomfall, Age of Mythology, plus others
• Bethesda MainStream
  • Start: 5am PDT / 8am EST / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST

Thursday August 22

• Xbox @ gamescom 2024
  • Start: 6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST
  • Featuring Star Wars Outlaws, World of Warcraft: The War Within, Towerborne plus others
• Bethesda MainStream
  • Start: 5am PDT / 8am EST / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST

Friday August 23

• Xbox @ gamescom 2024
  • Start: 6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST
  • Featuring Avowed, Ara: History Untold, plus others
• Bethesda MainStream
  • Start: 5am PDT / 8am EST / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST

Microsoft is heavily rumored to be set to release an Xbox handheld, but it looks like gamescom 2024 won’t be the platform for an announcement. Instead, the focus here is on already announced games, such as Obsidian’s Avowed, Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, and GSC Game World’s Stalker 2.

Bethesda is of course running MMOs Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online, and is set to release Starfield expansion Shattered Space later this year. No games from Microsoft-owned Activision were mentioned in the Xbox post, but Blizzard is attending to show off World of Warcraft and Diablo 4 expansions.

Sony and Nintendo, meanwhile, have confirmed they are skipping gamescom 2024. Sony told Eurogamer it has no plans for the show, and Nintendo confirmed the same back in April.

While Sony’s decision was expected (it hasn’t attended gamescom in years), Nintendo’s decision came as something of a surprise given it has turned up at gamescom in recent years. But with the Nintendo Switch successor console not due out until 2025, a quieter 2024 makes sense.

Microsoft’s big gamescom 2024 effort comes amid devastating cuts that have seen 1,900 staff exit its gaming business and the closure of a number of Bethesda studios, including Hi-Fi Rush maker Tango Gameworks and Redfall developer Arkane Austin. In June, Xbox boss Phil Spencer addressed these closures, insisting he had to make “hard decisions” to run a sustainable business.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.